New Girls Causing Some Chaos

llombardo

Crowing
Mar 11, 2018
3,017
4,820
356
Illinois
i have 4 that are almost 4 months and two of those are boys. Not sure what I'm doing there yet. I got 4 more girls that are 8 weeks. This is not going well. When I first put the first 4 outside the two boys fought once almost immediately. There was some challenging going on for a few days then everythjng was good. So today I originally brought the 4 littler ones out and contained them outside the enclosure. Instant fighting between the boys. I sprayed them with the hose. Then I moved the little ones into the enclosure. Everyone stayed on their perspective sides--if not they got sprayed. Finally I put the little ones into the sleeping area of the coop.that worked well for them. The two boys fought on and off all day. I expected some macho boy stuff to go on. I put the little ones in a med size carrier in the area they sleep. The two boys got into it in the coop. They finally settled down.

A couple questions...

What time do I have to get out there to remove them before they get up and argue? I put a gate out there so tomorrow one of them will only have access to half the area under the coop since I have to work and I do not trust them.

Next question, obviously this is due to the new girls, will it eventually stop like it did before or get worse? If I seperate them and then put them back together will it be a bigger issue?

I am so new at this. I have a feeling that I will definitely have to give one up for sure. I can't have them fighting, especially when I'm not home. They are a leghorn and silver lace. The silver lace is the one and has always been the one to challenge the leghorn. Before the leghorn started to just walk away. We haven't got back to that point but the leghorn does try to avoid the silver lace. I get the impression the leghorn does not want to fight.

I was afraid they would fight once in the coop. That got more evident by the way they were acting right before bed. They never crow that late and they were talking away. And the silver lace was debating about going in to sleep. Now I did add a bar going across to hang the feeder and that may have been in his way.
 
It takes a long time to safely integrate new chickens of any age. You need to have it where both sets can see each other but not touch each other. It usually takes a couple weeks of doing that before you put them together and then it’s better to do it at night.

As far as your two cockerels you need to decide who you are going to keep and who you are getting rid of. You cannot have 2 with the number of pullets you have. If you keep two they will overrate and stress out your girls. As they are getting older they are getting more hormonal and that can be very dangerous. It sounds like they are figuring out who is the alpha male which sounds like the silver laced.

I am no expert on cockerels though so I do help you get other advice. Good luck and enjoy your chickens.
 

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